“You’re okay,” a low, gentle voice soothes, then his face is looming over me. Dark lashes shadow those piercing green eyes, and windblown hair falls around his forehead. The firm line of his lips and hard clench of his jaw are such a contrast to the softness in his gaze. I see his arms wrap around me, but I can’t feel them. I can’t feel them at all, and it breaks my heart. I’m scared, so scared, and I need to feel his warmth, his touch, his comfort. “Shhh, you’re okay.” He’s stroking my hair, and I must be crying because he keeps saying,Shhh, shhh, you’re okay.
Colors blur around us as he walks, taking me away from the streets. As the sidewalk disappears, everything becomes green and deserted. We abandon civilization and press on, far into the meadow, until we’re shadowed by long, barren branches as he leans back against a tree. He slides down to the ground, cradling me like a child.
I’m still shaky even as I realize I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m still here. “Y-you’re here—”
“Shh, don’t try to talk right now. Just rest.”
“B-but I know . . . I know who you are . . .” My throat, it burns like matches scraping against a matchbox, too dry to catch a flame. I close my eyes, taking in the sensation. The burn. The pain. Because it means I can feel something again. It means the numbness is fading away.
“Rest,” he murmurs, his fingers sliding through my hair, brushing over my neck. He pulls me in tighter, and I cuddle up against him, pleased to find that I can. That my body is listening to me again.
Fatigue floods me, and my eyes are still closed when I speak. “Do you know who you are? Who youreallyare?”
He’s quiet for a moment, nothing but silence and darkness around me as my eyes rest. I wonder if I’ve fallen asleep, if the weight of my weariness has lulled me away. But then I feel the low rumble of his voice against me, making me curl into him even more. “I’m beginning to remember.” His words are slow, almost careful. “Not all of it, but enough. Enough to know I can’t . . .” He pauses, and the foreboding tone he’s taken has my eyes fluttering open, my chin tilting up so I can look at him. His voice is hoarse when he says, “I can’t keep coming back here, Lou. I can’t—I can’t see you again.”
I sit up too fast, a dizzy wave rushing through my head, and I wince. His hands help steady me as I shift on his lap, so we’re almost eye level. “Why would you say that? Of course you can see me again.”
He shakes his head, a pained expression crossing over his face as he stares down at me. “It wasn’t until last night, after my evening with you,” his gaze drops to my mouth at the mention of last night, lingering, then his thumb slowly strokes my bottom lip, “that it started coming back to me. Images, memories. Most of it’s in fragments, broken pieces, but the single moment I remember with full clarity is the day of my supposed death.”
“Supposeddeath? But the accident.”
He shakes his head again, his touch still holding me captive as he trails his fingers along my jaw, into my hair. “I was there, in the car, yes. And I was as good as dead. I knew I’d lost too much blood. There was no way I was making it out of there alive.” His gaze goes distant, jaw clenching, and my heart breaks a little more. “I was already wasting away, drifting, losing consciousness. But I wasn’t dead, not entirely, when that pull from the other side came for me. I still felt a shred of life running through me—hanging by a thread, but it was there.” His eyes narrow, sparking with a quiet, simmering anger. The expression is almost intimidating enough to make me shrink back. “When the car blew, the world shifted below my feet. My surroundings changed, and then I was there. In the darkness.”
I’m shaking my head, not wanting to believe it. What would it be like to go through something like that? It hits me now, as I really look at him, how exhausted he seems. Like someone who’s lost a week’s worth of sleep. God, if he didn’t start remembering any of this until last night, that means he’s had less than twenty-four hours to process it. I can’t even imagine coping with something like this, and all on your own, too.
“You see, Lou?” he says vaguely. “I wasn’t dead, but I wasn’t alive. I was something in between.”
I hear myself swallow, my mind working a million miles per second and my eyes locked on his.Something in between. “That’s . . . that’s why you were stuck? Locked in the in between, unable to reach the other side?”
He nods slowly. “How do you cross over to the other side when you’re more than just a soul, still connected to your body? And how do you return to reality when your heart can’t remember how to function on its own? I was unfit for either world.”
My eyes drop to the ground, taking it all in, and I find myself thinking back to the notes. His cries for help, his attempts to get his life back. “So you fought it. You somehow held on to who you were, and you tried reaching out through messages.”
He lets out a breath, runs a hand through his hair, and leans back, his weight sinking further against the tree. “That part’s a little hazier, but I remember fighting, yes. I remember feeling that I was slipping away, forgetting everything I’d ever known. And I remember being desperate to get my life back.” His lips press together tightly, letting me glimpse that anger again. “But you can only hold on for so long in a place like that. I don’t even know how I became Death, exactly, except that over time, I’d evolved. Adjusted to my surroundings. Acclimated, until I was fully a part of that place. You stay there long enough, and you become it.”
My stomach twists into knots, and I think I might be sick. The bile is coming up, and I have to force it back down. “So, does that mean . . . the others out there, in that place. You said before there’s more than one Death.” My eyes widen, the reality of what I’m about to say weighing heavily on me. “Does that mean they might be like you? Lost souls? Stuck, with no idea who they are?”
His gaze drops for a moment as he considers my question. “I’d say it’s very possible.”
I let out a loud whoosh of air, as if I’d been holding my breath for hours, and I shake my head. I don’t know where it comes from, but fresh determination rises from somewhere deep within me. “Okay, well now we know. Now we know who you are, what’s happened, and we can fix it. I can fix it. I’ll go to Mr. Blackwood—”
“Who?” His brows are pulled together, eyes narrowed, and my face falls.
Could he really not remember Mr. Blackwood? The very man who’s dedicated his life to helping him?
“Y-you don’t remember who that is?”
I can see the focus on his face as he tries to recall, but he gets nothing.
“The man you sent your messages to. The person you contacted all those years ago.”
Regret washes over his features, eyes closing briefly. “I’m sorry. I recall reaching out, but not to whom.”
I stare dumbfounded for a moment, the realization of how that knowledge would affect Mr. Blackwood dawning over me. To dedicate your entire life to trying to help someone, to getting them back, and they don’t even remember who you are? It would kill him. But then, I suppose he doesn’t have to know.
I shake the thought away, pulling my shoulders back and returning to my new plan. The words come out rushed, almost desperate, but I can’t help it. “Okay, that’s okay. He’s just someone who’s done a lot of research on this sort of thing. So, between the three of us, we can figure something out. We’ll put our heads together, and we can fix this. We can get you back.”
The blood is coursing through me, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I start to stand, but his hands come up around mine and gently tug me back down onto his lap.
